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What’s the Right Number of Americans?

By Andrew C. Revkin July 31, 2009 8:04 amJuly 31, 2009 8:04 am

Joseph Chamie, whom I interviewed early on here about the population “cluster bombs” exploding in many poor places around the world, has turned his focus on the growing population of the United States, and its relation to the hot-button issue of immigration policy.

In an essay on YaleGlobal Online, he posits that immigration policy is, in essence, population policy. He reviews the ample evidence that, no surprise, immigration is the dominant force determining the number of Americans and the balance of young and old. The graph below, produced by Mr. Chamie, shows that without newcomers, who tend to be younger and produce bigger families, the country’s population today would be what it was around 1930.

Without more of a focus on the implications of immigration policy for population, there could be 600 million Americans by 2100, he writes. Depending on whom you talk to, that is a boon or a disaster. Mr. Chamie notes that the relatively enormous thirst for energy, food and other resources from Americans, when compared with that of the average world citizen, gives outsize importance to issues like global warming and to American trends.

Below you can read an excerpt with a few more details. What’s your sense of the optimum number of Americans?

U.S. Immigration Policy Likely to Boost Population
by Joseph Chamie

Over the past several decades, the White House and Congress established various commissions to comprehensively address the future size of America’s population. In general, these high-level advisory bodies concluded that in the long run, no substantial benefits would result from the further growth of the nation’s population. And in particular, they recognized that America cannot grow indefinitely and recommended that the country welcome and plan for a gradual stabilization of its population.

Also, they concluded that there is hardly any problem confronting America whose solution would be easier with a larger population. Moving toward population stabilization would contribute significantly to America’s ability to solve its domestic problems as well as many of those abroad, especially energy and resource consumption, climate change and environmental sustainability. Moreover, without U.S. leadership as demonstrated by domestic efforts to stabilize its population and thereby mitigate further damage to the environment, other nations would be reluctant to adopt policies and practices to stabilize their populations and work toward developmental and ecological sustainability. Read more…

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By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.